


paper planes and playground games

by junko (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Aquariums, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they bring Jamie Barnes into the tower, she's angry, on edge, twitchy and afraid of people.</p>
<p>Toni can sympathize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paper planes and playground games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bucketbarne](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bucketbarne).



> this is assignment no. 26 for the MRPE. i'm pinch-hitting since the original giver had to drop out.
> 
> i'm sorry it's late, and i really hope you like it!! you said that you accepted femslash so i hope you don't mind that i did a cis-swap. 
> 
> title is from starry eyed by ellie goulding

When they bring Jamie Barnes into the tower, she's angry, on edge, twitchy and afraid of people.

Toni can sympathize. She was the same when she came back from Afghanistan, only she didn't have the privilege of showing it. No, she had revenge to get down to, a company to run, yadda yadda.

Ha, her not having privilege. That's a good one.

When Rogers brings Barnes in, Toni takes one look at her before calling Pepper, and then she goes to her workshop and drinks an entire bottle of scotch, just like the bad old days. She is nearly forty, she cannot deal with this bullshit.

But damn, she wants to get her hands on that arm though. She can only imagine how badly Hydra did it – they probably didn't care about calibration or effects on the skeleton or pain, as long as their weapon could do the job right.

Toni shudders. 

She decides that as soon as Barnes isn't afraid of her, she'll take care of the arm. 

She sort of hates herself.

/ / / / / 

It comes out the first time they're alone together. They're in the communal kitchen, and Barnes is waiting for Stella to come back from her morning jog. Toni is slightly hungover and very sleep-deprived and she only came to the kitchen for a blueberry smoothie.

Instead, she blurts out, “Did you kill my parents?”

Jamie turns her head automatically to look at her, and Toni internally winces but doesn't back down or look away. Barnes' eyes go blank, as if she's pulling back inside of herself, before she comes back to the world of the living and says,

“No.”

It comes out quiet, and then louder after she clears her throat. “They made me try once, but Howard recognized me and my programming glitched. After I was punished for failing the mission, they reprogrammed me and put me back on ice.”

Toni hisses, because Jesus, that's horrible, but Barnes isn't done. 

“The time before that, I had lapsed and ended up on the Lower East Side. They decided that my programming was breaking down after what happened with Howard, and didn't bring me out until it was time to prep for killing Fury. They... they made sure the programming would stick. I wasn't supposed to meet Stella. They were going to take me out once Project Insight was in the air.”

When she's done, she looks at Toni expectantly, and Toni just laughs slightly hysterically and throws herself in a chair. “Oh, thank God,” she says, letting out a breath she didn't remember taking. 

She clears her throat, extends her hand. “In that case, it's nice to meet'cha, call me Toni, I'm glad you didn't kill my parents. Like, my dad sucked, no question about it, he was an asshole, but still, it's the principle of the thing, dont'cha think?”

Barnes looks at her hand for a full thirty second before taking it gingerly in her metal fingers and pumping. “Ah. Jamie. I'm... glad I didn't kill them, too.” 

Toni grins. “Cool. So, want a smoothie?”

Barnes stares at her, so Toni shrugs and makes an extra one anyway. Her smoothies are excellent, thank you very much, and they're drinking them when Stella comes back all appropriately sweaty and gross.

“I'm hanging out with Toni,” Jamie says quietly, with a proud little smile on, and Toni wants to snap a picture of it and put it on her think-board. It's so cute, holy shit, she's melting, someone call the cops.

“I make fantastic smoothies,” Toni says, shrugging flippantly when Cap turns her million-watt smile on her. It's too early for this, she's not wearing her shades. “Want one, Miss World USA?”

So they sit in the kitchen and drink smoothies together. Toni wonders if this is what being in a sorority is like. 

Still: she doesn't have to revenge-kill Captain America's best friend, and she got permission to work on the arm. Clearly a successful day, and it's not even seven. This is a new record for her, probably.

/ / / / / 

Toni is wrist-deep in Barnes' circuiting, and no, that's not an euphemism. 

Would she need to, like, ask Rogers for permission if she wanted to take Barnes on a date? That was a thing that was done in the thirties, right? Toni is fairly sure that she can offer a good date-dowry. She may need to study what life was like in the forties a bit closer.

Case in point: arm, wiring, Toni's hand. Barnes is freaking out, which in turn is making Toni freak out. She isn't moving at all, she's completely still, but her hair is in her face, and her eyes keep on darting around, her mind all over the place. 

Toni opens her mouth to offer something soothing and comforting to bring the scared assassin back to herself. What comes out is “Have you ever been to an aquarium?”

Barnes blinks, focuses on her, and frowns, her brow furrowing a little in the middle just like Cap's. Oh, they're so adorable, Toni kind of wants to vomit. “I don't know what that is.”

“It's, like, a museum, but instead of boring stuff it's just fish tanks, and the fish just swim around and do fish things.” Toni sighs, she's going to have to remake the arm. That means surgery. Goddamn it. “We have one on, like, the third floor that's open to the public, I can take you to check it out if you want.”

Jamie looks at her again for a long time and then she smiles and nods. “That sounds cool.”

“Cool!” Toni chirps, already mentally drawing a new arm. 

/ / / / / 

Jamie pins her sleeve up to go to the aquarium by herself, and she's proud of herself for it. She asks Nat for help pulling her hair back, though, but that's okay because Natasha doesn't care. Stella is always kind of over-eager about those kind of things. 

She meets Toni at the elevator, and they take it down about thirty-floors while Toni talks about her new arm and how it's coming along. She offers to put lasers on it, but Jamie shakes her head no with a laugh. Toni is different from Howard, but still funny.

She's pretty, too.

The aquarium is empty save got a couple of little kids with their parents, and Jamie is transfixed. She spends hours running from tank to tank and watching the fish swim around. She's fascinated by how calming it is, and how pretty they all are.

Toni laughs at her and calls her a child and asks Jarvis to explain what all the fish are and where they're from. A squid pokes at them with a tentacle from behind the glass of the tank, and Jamie sticks her tongue out at it. Toni laughs even more.

Finally, they're sitting on a bench when Toni blurts out, “Can I kiss you?”

Jamie turns to stare at her, and she keeps on rambling on, hands moving as she talks. “Because, y'know, this is kind of a stereotype, like the 'date at the aquarium' thing, and I've always wanted to kiss someone attractive in an aquarium, secretly, don't tell anyone. Plus, your robot arm is super sexy, but consent is pretty sexy too, so. Yes?”

Jamie thinks about it and leans in to kiss her. She still has muscle memory from all those years ago, so her hands come up to frame Toni's face, and she doesn't do half bad if she can say so herself.

When they pull apart, Jamie says, “You could call me Bucky, if you want.”

Toni quirks an eyebrow at her. “I thought that was Stella's thing?”

Bucky shrugs. “I think... that I want everyone to call me that. That's who I want to be. I decided that, just now.”

“Go me for provoking that revelation!” Toni crows and punches the air, before turning to her with a glint in her eye and a smirk on her lips. “So, since I kissed Jamie, think I can get a kiss out of Bucky Barnes?”

And she does, and she punches the air again, and Bucky grins.

The octopus looks at theme and then swims to another tank, and Toni feels the radiated judgment. 

“Fuck you, squid, I'm the one kissing a pretty girl, go swim around and be sad,” she says, and even if it's childish Bucky laughs even harder.

{ + 1 }

[new message from Stark:] hey capsicle i just made out w/ ur bestie do i need to like honor marry her now or what how does this work?? 10/10 would do again tbh. ttyl!! <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> once again i really hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> also a big final shoutout to holly at the MRPE for organizing this shin-dig so that everyone could have a place to exchange and have fun! you rock girl
> 
> please leave a comment if you like it, and come find me at ladydent or captstella on tumblr!


End file.
